


Narcissism in Absurdum

by Baryshnikov



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Beauty - Freeform, Falling In Love, Forbidden Love, M/M, Masochism, Masturbation, Mirrors, Narcissism, Sadomasochism, Self-cest, Unattainable perfection, impossible love, perfection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 14:30:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18852970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: He is the only person that has ever been good enough for himself.





	Narcissism in Absurdum

**Author's Note:**

> I’m so sorry, I was craving some really narcissistic Tom self-cest, and there just wasn’t enough, so I ended up writing some more myself. As you can probably guess, this is gratuitously self-indulgent on my part, so I apologise in advance.

Ever since he was young, Tom knew he was special. He had watched himself in cracked mirrors out of interest, just watching because he was his own friend, his own and his only. Growing up, he’d learnt he didn’t need friends, they crowded up the picture frame, took up too much space, so that there was less for him. 

Other people had never been attractive to him. They didn’t have that _thing_ that everybody talked about. Though he could appreciate certain people from a distance, the way they lifted their arms or turned their head to the side, and the light skimmed along their jaw. Standing closer, Tom knew, if someone was going get his attention, they needed dark eyes and dark hair, and a face he could just look at and always find something new. They had to be interesting. Strange. Odd, even. They above all had to be _special_. 

The others laughed and said he had a ‘type’. At least that’s what Abraxas called it, a ‘type’. A certain list of specifications that had to be met before he’d even smile at someone. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Sharp smiles. Fine bones. Pale haunting skin. That was what he needed before he’d give people the second glance that they so craved. Really, he came to realise, he wanted the people captured in the paintings, the ones who would never change, that were preserved for eternity in their gorgeous states. But all his ‘friends’ said he was too particular, that the person he was looking for, simply didn’t exist. But they didn’t know that he had already found that _perfect_ person. 

He’d found himself in the mirror. He couldn’t remember when, and it hadn’t been a single moment, more a lifelong build up to noticing himself, and his undeniable perfection. It had started with second glances in reflective surfaces across the room. A slow understanding that he was here, as a physical presence in the world, that he could touch himself, that his actions had consequences. That was how it started. But it had mutated since then into something as damned as it was divine. Whilst his ‘friends’ burned up their lives in meaningless assignations, Tom watched himself from afar, purporting to be above it all, to have a degree of self-control that they all lacked. When in reality, he indulged himself in staring at a sacred image that he could not have.

He would never admit, because no one else would ever understand, how long he stood watching his reflection in the mirror. How he would leave the tap running, and the noise of the water would blur the rest of the world out, and it was just be him and himself alone together. Sometimes, when there was no one else, he would touch the glassy surface with the very tips of his fingers, and imagine that he really could touch himself like that. That he could feel his skin, and his muscles and his bones, that he could burrow down beneath the surface and find the things that made him human. He wanted to hold himself, grip his chin in his own palm and have his fingers digging into the hollows of his own cheeks. In a twisted way, he wanted to be the one to seduce himself, to hear his own words whispered against the shell of his ear, to feel the timbre so alluring, and the words themselves so provocative. He wanted to be the one to touch himself, to hurt himself, to take himself apart because no one else was good enough. No one else would do it quite right; they wouldn’t know how to touch, how to be soft and severe at the same time; they wouldn’t be able to perfect the scraping of nails on his thighs. They simply wouldn’t be able to fulfil the masochistic need in his heart, the wanting he had, to be hurt so exquisitely, to have his insides stripped out and stitched back together over and over and over again. 

They simply wouldn’t _understand_. 

That was why he was here alone, standing in front of the mirror, running his fingers over his cheekbones and groaning at the thought of actually doing it. Of actually being able to stand in front of himself and just touch _everything_. To feel the curves and the lines and the creases. To trace his bones, dipping into the hollows and leaving red scratches, that only he could see, on the ridges. He wanted to connect the constellations of freckles that were strewn like wildflowers across his shoulders, with his own tongue. There was just so much that he wanted to do. And it was agony not to be able to feel himself except through mirrors, and they just weren’t enough anymore. They made his skin so cold and hard, and he just couldn’t touch and taste the same when the thing before him, wasn’t real. When it no more than an image on a screen for him to stare at and admire, but never to fully indulge himself with. One day, he would find a way to fulfil his fantasies, a way to get himself out of the mirror and between his sheets, but for now, the mirror’s cold surface had to do.

He let his fingers fall off his cheek’s reflection and to his own shirt buttons. He didn’t need to, and he probably shouldn’t, but what was the point in pleasure if he didn’t get to feed himself with himself; if he didn’t get to fully reward himself with every sanctimonious inch of his own body. What was the reason to be alive, if not to admire himself in full detail?

His clothes were so rough against his skin and were nothing compared to the smoothness of his own hands. The gentleness of his fingers as they touched, like this was the first time, like he had virgin skin that not even light had had the chance to blemish. It wasn’t the first time. Carefully Tom undid the topmost buttons of his shirt and peeled back the fabric. The light cast itself just right on his collarbones, highlighting their sharpness, their minimalistic beauty so evident against the ornateness of the backdrop. Whilst people like Abraxas needed glamourous backgrounds and palatial settings for their beauty to be at all visible, he needed nothing. Extravagant settings of gold and silk were just – unnecessary. He was everything that could ever be needed, authentic and unrefined and raw like a diamond pulled straight from the rock. 

As he ran his fingers over the crest of the bone, Tom watched his face. This close he could see the colours in his eyes that no one else could, the brown and the gold and the black mixing together like a burning wheat field. Abraxas was the only one who’d ever been close enough to see the colours of his irises, and the stretch of his pupils, as they stood too close against dark walls. Even Abraxas was nothing like this, nothing like him. His hair was too long, and his eyes too pale to even pretend, that he was someone else. So, whenever Abraxas insisted on pressing their mouths together in a simulation of affection, he closed his eyes and imagined what it would be like to kiss himself. To have his own mouth pressed to his, his own tongue exploring his own mouth, catching occasionally on his own teeth. Tom bit his lip. He hadn’t realised he’d closed his eyes. 

He kept them open now, leaning closer to the mirror, one arm resting above his head, palm pressed flat against the glass. Like this, he could watch his reactions, really watch them. See what he liked, what he didn’t even realise that he liked. With every button Tom undid, he swallowed harder, knowing that with every slide of the fabric, he would get to see just that little bit more of himself. 

The shirt fluttered down behind him, falling softly on the floor. It was cold without it, but that just made everything more real. It meant that when he touched his reflection, their temperatures were similar, and just maybe there could really be someone before him. Without anything covering him, there were so many lines to see, to admire, to trace with his thumb. The long straight line of his sternum, dropping down the edge of his ribs. Tom could feel them beneath his skin, bump his fingers over them. He loved his ribs, though he would never feel them again, if he could just touch his own spine for a few minutes. To just touch the ridges, slide over them with his tongue, feel the skeleton that hid itself from him. He would love to scrape the tips of his fingers all over his spine, feel the bones for what they were, discover whether he was just as special on the inside as on the out. Was his spine made of just bone, or was there magic interwoven with his very skeleton? Would he be able to taste it? To lick it up from his own skin, or would he have to bite into his own shoulder? Leave permanent teeth marks in his body just to indulge a masochistic fantasy that ran deeper than he would ever freely admit. 

Tom watched as his lips fell open at the thought alone of having access to everything that he couldn’t currently have. It looked so decadent. Mouth open, pupils wide, fingers shaking as they touched everything he could. Lightly running down his stomach and over his hip and against his thigh. That slight intake of breath so loud in this unending silence whenever his nails scratched the fabric of his trousers _just_ right. There was something so gorgeous in the idea of being taken apart by himself, being stripped back in a way that only he would know how to do. He was honestly surprised to learn, in the depths of one late night, sitting with the others, that they did not dream of having themselves. Rather, they talked of the merits of other people’s bodies. He had smiled with the rest of them of course, but in his head, Tom knew he was the only he wanted. There were so many things that he wanted to do to himself, both with the mirror and without. He would love to control himself, and be controlled, to make himself hurt, and be hurt by himself, just to see how beautiful pain really was. Just to understand what it would be like to tear himself apart over and over again, and then build himself back up, moulding himself into a different image each and every time until he no longer knew who he was.

Tom bit his lip, there was no need to pretend he was here for any other reason than to fully enjoy himself, so he might as well get on with it. He kneeled down, unlaced his shoes, slid off his socks and stepped out of his clothes. He stayed kneeling, the floor so cold and hard on his knees, and his reflection, his perfect reflection, staring back at him. The both of them knowing that no one else would ever be able to give him this. Tom pressed one hand to the mirror, steadying himself because nothing was more dizzying, more intoxicating than imagining himself being pushed back against the floor, his other self, climbing out of the mirror and doing whatever he wanted to him; the things that only he would know to do to himself. Swallowing thickly, Tom started to move his fingers, slowly, so slowly, just pressing his palm into his thigh, feeling the softness and knowing he could bruise it if he wanted to. Leave behind pink pinches that slowly turned blue and purple, and then yellow and green. Little marks that the others would see and wonder who did that to him. 

Licking his lips, Tom let his fingers start to dip into the creases at the tops of his thighs. He followed the natural line to his cock, flushed and heavy between his thighs. Eyes still on the mirror, he wrapped his fingers around himself. If he watched his reflection, never letting his eyes wander, it could almost be someone else, another version of him, stroking him so slowly. Fingertips running feather soft, back and forth and back, making his mouth dry and his entire body pulse. It was so easy. So good. Just him and himself sharing pure satisfaction. Tom let his eyes drop, let him watch his own reflection, watch his open mouth, and the flush spilling down his neck and rise and fall and rise and fall of his chest. He was just gorgeous, so gorgeous, so so gorgeous. 

With stuttering breaths and shaking hands, Tom swallowed, and tracked the flush down his cock, groaning at the weight and the throb of it in his hand, and though his legs were aching, he spread himself wider, letting his reflection touch him like no one else ever could. Letting his finger circle the tip, sliding over the slit until the heat began to pool in his stomach, and his hips shifted involuntarily, and that deep thudding in his chest was spreading to the rest of his body. But just as he crept closer to that aching edge Tom clenched his fingers and stopped everything the second before bliss. His reflection gasped back at him, devasted and betrayed by his cruelty. Tom only smiled back at himself, loving the beauty and the cruelty that twisted themselves together in his face, loving how red and wet his mouth was, sheened with his own spit. 

It was positively masochistic, and undeniably good, to keep taking himself right to edge, and right to the edge, and right to the edge, and yet not once let himself go over. Every time just stripping away another layer of himself, leaving it on the floor with his clothes, and immediately peeling back the next film that lay beneath his skin. It left his composure ruins, grating it down to the bone until there was nothing left to stop the moans spilling out of his mouth. They just dripped off his tongue and resounded off the tiled walls, sounding echoey and distant to his ears, almost like they could be someone else’s groans. Like there could be him standing behind and watching himself. Tom would love to see his own hands clasp at his shaking hands, the elegant fingers curling around his knuckles, steadying him. And the feeling of his own mouth at his neck and himself tell him he was just so good. He tipped his head back, one hand staying right up against the mirror. He wanted to kiss himself, to beg himself, to be properly fucked by himself. But this was all he had: a dry tongue and a shaking hand and a leaking cock. 

He wanted these heavy moments to last an eternity, to forever have himself to himself, but at the same time the ache in his stomach and the prickle on his skin and tautness, that ran from the base of his spine to the very tip, was simply unbearable. Pleasure and Pain combining and coalescing, and curling up further and further inside him, a ball of barbed-wire love. All Tom had to do to fall right off the edge, was stare into his own eyes and bite his own mouth and admit just how much he loved himself, and his whole body was contracting, collapsing in on itself. And he was left, skin burning on the mirror’s coolness, panting, flushed, and so so satisfied. 

Tom didn’t move from the cool surface of the mirror. He just stayed there, forehead to forehead with his reflection, their pupils hooked on each other. And although his fingers were trembling and his eyes were hazed, and he was shivering all over, Tom didn’t care because the most important person in the world was still by his side, and he was just as in love with himself as he was.


End file.
